Unexpected Blessings

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  ‘I picked it up here and there. I have my sources. I nosed around. Anyway, how long are you staying in Paris?’

  ‘I’m not exactly sure. That’s why I needed you to come to see me, rather than meeting you in London. I have to pop down to the south of France. I’ve bought a Provençal property, a rather nice old farm…I’m going to need you for that you know, Mark, as well, need your input for which, of course, you will be very well paid. But we’ll get to that later. Right now I’d like to know how your divorce is coming along? You know how much your separation from that dreadful girl has meant to me. We can’t have you, such a talented architect, hampered in your rise by a mere Harte, now can we? And she is something of a bitch, isn’t she?’

  ‘Bitch is not a strong enough word to describe Tessa Fairley. She’s impossible. I wish I could get Adele away from her,’ Mark cried passionately.

  ‘Well, my dear boy, why don’t we try? Money’s no object as far as you’re concerned. I’ll give you anything you need in this fight to…the death, shall we say.’

  Mark glanced at him swiftly, and exclaimed in a low voice, ‘I don’t mind bashing her around a bit, but I’d never kill her, Jonathan. I’m not a murderer and I’m not going to swing for any woman.’

  ‘Listen here, my friend, I have a few ideas.’ As Jonathan spoke Mark leaned closer to him, listening carefully, and slowly a smile spread itself across his face.

  The two of them sat talking and drinking for another hour or so, and then finally Jonathan paid the bill and he and Mark left the bar together.

  In their merriment, and still embroiled in their plotting, they did not notice a nondescript couple sitting in a corner of the bar, who had been watching them for the entire time they had been there. The couple, a man and a woman, quickly followed them out into the street and kept them under surveillance until Jonathan located his car and chauffeur. Once he and Mark were being driven off the couple followed in their own vehicle, both bracing themselves for a long night.

  It was noon on Friday and Lorne was alone in the hotel suite, studying his lines. Next week he had to report to the studios outside Paris and he wanted to be word perfect.

  He was on his fifth reading of the first few pages of his part when the ringing of the phone on the desk cut into his concentration. Putting the script on the coffee table, he went to answer it.

  He had barely said ‘Hello,’ when his half-sister Linnet exclaimed, ‘Hello, Lorne, it’s me.’

  ‘Little Bird, how lovely to hear your chirps. Where–’

  ‘I do think our mother should have known better, not named me after a bird, of all things! And I’m here, at Pennistone Royal.’

  ‘How’s the weather?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s cooler; in fact it’s very pleasant, and I’m sitting here on the terrace, taking it easy for once in my life.’

  ‘You taking it easy! Balderdash. I’ll believe that when I see it.’ He laughed, full of affection for Linnet. ‘All is well there, I presume?’

  ‘Yes, nothing untoward is happening. I can see Adele, playing with her dolls, Elvira is with her, and Evan is due here for lunch. She, too, is taking the afternoon off. It’s been quite a week for her at the Leeds store. Anyway, how’s Tessa? I hope she’s not worrying too much.’

  ‘No, she’s not, and I’d put her on, but she just left a few minutes ago for lunch with a friend.’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t want to speak to her, it was you I was looking for, Lorne.’

  ‘What’s the matter? You suddenly sound strange.’

  ‘Everything’s okay, more or less. But I wanted to alert you to the fact that Jonathan Ainsley’s left Hong Kong. He’s in Paris–’

  ‘How do you know?’ he cut in quickly, his hackles rising.

  ‘Jack Figg just phoned me a short while ago. His operatives are all over the place, have their sights on Mr Ainsley. Anyway, he was spotted in Paris last night, with the dreaded Mark Longden. They were in a bar drinking together, looking very cosy indeed.’

  ‘Oh, hell, that’s the pits.’

  ‘Lorne, don’t worry, and please don’t tell Tessa. I don’t want to ruin her trip. There’s no need for her to know about them being there together, you can say I called to tell her all is well here, which it is.’

  ‘I hope those two buggers are not plotting something nasty,’ Lorne muttered, ‘I don’t trust either of them.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Linnet agreed. ‘But it could be just a meeting about the house Mark Longden designed for Ainsley in Thirsk. He was up in Yorkshire for a couple of days. So Jack tells me. Try not to be alarmed, and as Dad would say, keep your eyes peeled.’

  ‘I will, and thanks for alerting me. When is Mums actually coming back? Tessa said she would be back next week, Dad a few days later.’

  ‘That’s right, Mummy’s coming with Winston and Emily, around the sixth, but Dad has some more meetings in the Bahamas or Barbados, and another in New York. From what she said, Mummy wants to get the divorce moving for Tessa, and she feels her presence is required.’

  ‘I think it probably is, so listen, chickadee–’

  ‘Hey, stop all this bird stuff, dearest brother of mine, I had enough of it as a child.’

  He smiled into the phone, and said, ‘Sorry, but old habits die hard, you know. Big kiss, Linnet.’

  ‘Big kiss to you, big brother. And break a leg next week.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  After helping her into the back of the car, the driver gave her an envelope. Sitting comfortably against the leather seat, Tessa looked at the envelope on which Jean-Claude had written: Madame Tessa Fairley.

  She gazed for a moment at the handwriting, admiring it. His penmanship was beautiful, she thought–bold and flowing. Opening it, she took out the note. Dear Tessa: he had written, The chauffeur will take you to my home. If I am a few minutes late my houseman Hakim will serve you refreshment. JCD.

  After reading the note again, she put it in her handbag and glanced out of the window, wondering where he lived. But the driver had not volunteered any information and she decided not to ask. There had been many questions on the tip of her tongue this morning, when she had had breakfast with Lorne, but she had resisted asking them. She wanted to find out about this man herself; the opinions of others were not important, not even Lorne’s. In any case, she knew her brother would not say anything about the writer that was not laudatory because he was an old friend, a man Lorne much admired.

  Tessa straightened the black linen tunic she was wearing over matching narrow trousers, and settled herself comfortably in the corner of the car seat. Uncertain of where they would be going to lunch, she had chosen this simple tailored outfit because it could go anywhere–to a bistro or a much more elegant restaurant. A pair of pearl studs and a pearl-and-gold flower pin on the shoulder added a certain chic, and yet all could be removed and put in her bag if it was necessary to play down the outfit.

  The heat had hit her when she had come out of the hotel, and now she was glad she was wearing the sleeveless linen top and strappy sandals on her bare feet. It was obviously going to be a sizzler, this last day of August, and the black linen was cool and comfortable.

  As the car pushed through the traffic, Tessa began to realize that they were more than likely heading to her favourite part of Paris, the seventh arrondissement, and sure enough it was not very long before the driver was turning onto the rue de Babylone. He eventually came to a stop in front of an old, turn-of-the-century building with a massive porte-cochère, those huge wooden doors where horse-drawn carriages used to pass through into the courtyard in days gone by.

  After helping her out of the car, the driver indicated the small door cut into one side of the porte-cochère, and bid her goodbye. She smiled, thanked him and went through the door into the cobbled courtyard of the building, which obviously had once been a hôtel particulier, a grand house in the past before it became apartments.

  The concierge of the building immediately stepped out of his small office, gr
eeted her pleasantly and asked how he could help her. She told him that Monsieur Deléon was expecting her, and he nodded, led her into the apartment building and showed her to a pair of double-mahogany doors to the right of the small cage-like lift that went up to apartments on other floors.

  Thanking him, she walked over to the doors, rang the bell and waited; a moment later one side of the double doors was opened by a smiling middle-aged man in a white butler’s jacket. From his olive skin and dark hair she thought that he was probably North African.

  ‘Madame, bonjour,’ he said at once, opening the door wider, ushering her into the apartment. ‘I am Hakim,’ he added in accented English.

  ‘Bonjour, Hakim,’ Tessa replied, her high heels clicking rat-a-tat as she followed him across the marble floor of the entrance foyer.

  Showing her into a large room that was obviously a library, Hakim said, ‘Madame…un apéritif?’ and added, by way of explanation, ‘Monsieur sera de retour dans dix minutes.’

  ‘Un verre d’eau, s’il vous plaît,’ Tessa murmured.

  Left alone, Tessa surveyed the library from the doorway, not moving for a moment, taking everything in eagerly, wanting to know as much as possible about Jean-Claude Deléon, and his home would certainly tell her much, she knew that.

  The library was unlike any room she had ever seen, and quite extraordinary, very beautiful in an understated, rather masculine way. It had enormous elegance and bespoke great taste, especially evident in the antiques, which looked like museum pieces to her.

  Basically, it was a monochromatic room based on a play of soft creams and beiges, and this mix of pale colours made a subtle background for the ripe and mellow wood tones of the various antique pieces.

  The creamy walls matched the full-length cream-wool draperies at the windows and the cream-and-beige upholstered sofas and chairs, while the highly polished wood floor shone like glass and was totally devoid of rugs, which added to the lustre of the room, not to mention its elegance.

  From where she was standing in the entrance Tessa faced two tall windows at the far end. A large mahogany antique desk stood in front of the windows and it was partnered with a mahogany chair which she thought was from the French Empire period. On the desk were a pair of gilded-wood column lamps with square black shades, and various other things she couldn’t quite make out from this distance, except for the back of a tall clock.

  Glancing to her left, Tessa saw that this wall was dominated by an imposing white marble fireplace over which hung a trumeau, an antique mirror. The main seating arrangement was grouped in front of the fireplace and was composed of four Louis XV bergères and two matching sofas. They surrounded a glass coffee table, which did not seem out of place to her at all amongst the antique furniture.

  On the opposite wall were floor-to-ceiling bookcases made of dark polished wood; these ran the entire length of the room, and were filled to overflowing with hundreds and hundreds of volumes. Just in front of the bookshelves was a lovely eighteenth-century library table, and in one corner, to her right, stood a guéridon, an antique pedestal table, and next to it a straight-backed chair and a standing lamp.

  At this moment Hakim reappeared, arriving on silent feet with her glass of water, and after taking it and thanking him she walked down to the windows and stood looking out.

  Much to her surprise there was a wide terrace immediately outside the windows, and, beyond, a lawn and flower beds filled with white flowers; growing against a high stone wall were a variety of large trees, shrubs and bushes, all creating a lovely green bower, welcome shade on a hot day like this. Underneath the trees were several metal garden chairs, and she couldn’t help thinking what a lovely spot this was in the very heart of Paris. Such a luxury, a garden in the city.

  Hakim now came out onto the terrace and began to set the table, and she suddenly understood that she and Jean-Claude were going to have lunch here and not in a restaurant, and this pleased her.

  Turning around she glanced at the desk. The antique clock was by the famous Paris clockmaker, Le Roy et Fils; there was an elaborate gilded-bronze box close to it, two crystal paper knives with bronze-filigree decoration on the handles, and a black leather desk blotter with white blotting paper untouched by ink. And that was it. There was a paucity of clutter on the desk, which looked elegant and masculine in its pristine state.

  Walking down the room, she went to look at the books on the shelves. So many philosophers…Descartes, Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles; books by such French writers as Victor Hugo, Celine, André Malraux, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emile Zola and Colette; volumes of French, English and American history; some of her own favourite novels by Dickens, the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen. Politics were covered from all aspects, as the different books by Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, and others attested. There were a variety of political biographies about Churchill, John Major, De Gaulle, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Roosevelt, and histories of Napoleon, Talleyrand, Nelson, the Duke of Marlborough, and Cromwell, as well as Elizabeth Tudor and Charles II. And, she noticed, a collection of Churchill’s famous rhetorical speeches from the Second World War years, plus his History of the English Speaking Peoples in its many volumes.

  Every religion was represented, with books on Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam. In fact, she realized there were a lot of volumes on Islam lined up alongside a collection of newer books on terrorism. Next to these were volume after volume covering the hundreds of wars which had been fought over the centuries. Conversely, on yet another shelf, there were many novels which had been published recently, and she recognized a number of English titles with colourful jackets by well-known British authors.

  Stepping further along, she stared at a number of art books stacked on a shelf, which featured the work of Renoir, Picasso, Manet, Monet, Degas, Gauguin, Turner, Constable, Gainsborough, Bernard Buffet, and Rodin. Resting on another shelf were books on the music of Massenet, Bizet, Ravel, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Puccini, and the operas of Wagner.

  She couldn’t help wondering if he had read all of these books and decided it was more than likely that he had. She could not fail to understand that he had wide-ranging tastes as well as an interest in art and music.

  Having sipped most of the water, Tessa looked about and finally went and put the half-empty tumbler on the glass coffee table, deeming it to be the safest place in a room full of valuable antiques.

  Now she began to wander around, looking at the art on the walls. An arresting portrait of Napoleon, and another of Napoleon and Josephine together, were hanging side by side to the right of the mirror over the fireplace, and on the other side there was a lovely painting of an elegant woman in a blue dress that appeared to be very old, and she wondered if it was by Ingres. It looked as if it might be. On either side of the door leading to the foyer were framed antique panels, each one of a man and a woman in seventeenth-century clothing, depicting autumn and winter, she thought. Old, and unusual, in the style of Fragonard.

  Finally, she returned to the fireplace and allowed her eyes to roam, assessing the overall effects as they ranged around the entire room. Taking in everything once more, she acknowledged that this library was a room not only of taste and refinement, but a reflection of the extraordinary man who occupied it. A brilliant man who was highly educated, cultured, an intellectual and a philosopher, a man of immense accomplishment.

  Suddenly she heard his footsteps coming across the foyer. A second later he was standing in the doorway, regarding her. He wore a dark suit and a white shirt, and as he stood there looking at her so intently he struggled with his tie, loosened it, as if it were too tight for him. And then he walked towards her.

  An unexpected attack of nerves made her tremble inside, and she was frozen to the spot, unable to move. She was taken by surprise when she realized she was curiously intimidated.

  He came to a standstill in front of her and stretched out his hand. She took it. He brought her hand up to his mouth, barely brushed his lips against it, an
d let it go.

  ‘My apologies. I kept you waiting,’ he said.

  ‘That’s all right,’ she answered, swallowing, wondering why her mouth was so dry.

  Jean-Claude stepped away from her, explaining, as he did, ‘Would you excuse me, please. I want to put on different clothes…more comfortable. Je reviens tout de suite.’

  And then he was gone again, and she was alone once more, and she sat down heavily on one of the bergères, feeling slightly weak at the knees as she waited for him to return.

  Jean-Claude moved rapidly across the foyer, went up the staircase to the next floor, taking the steps two at a time, and hurried into his bedroom. After quickly shedding his clothes, he put on a clean white cotton shirt, rolled up the sleeves, went into a walk-in closet and found a pair of beige cotton trousers. Once he was dressed, he slipped his bare feet into a pair of brown loafers, feeling much better already. The attire he had worn for the meeting at the presidential palace had been stifling on this hot morning, and he was glad to be rid of it.

  Walking across his bedroom, he picked up the phone and dialled Lorne Fairley on his cell-phone number.

  Lorne answered it almost immediately with a brisk, ‘Hello?’

  ‘C’est moi,’ Jean-Claude said. ‘I am now at my home. Tessa is here, and we shall take lunch in the garden.’

  ‘That’s a good idea, Jean-Claude, I don’t think it would be wise for her to be seen in Paris with another man, although I’m sure two Englishmen wouldn’t stray into your world, but you never know.’

  ‘I have a question. I forgot to ask you earlier.’

  ‘Ask me now.’

  ‘Is the presence of her husband a coincidence? Or is he stalking her, perhaps? Should I get security for Tessa, to be sure she is safe?’

  ‘That’s not necessary, but thanks for thinking of it. I’m pretty certain Mark Longden’s in Paris to report in. Actually, he’s probably been summoned by Ainsley.’

  ‘Bien. I understand. And be relaxed, Lorne, she is safe with me. I will stay in touch with you…and you must do the same.’